Bing-powered Windows 8.1 heralds a better, smarter Microsoft

Deep integration is proof positive that the company is actually working together.

Microsoft's Bing search engine takes center stage in Windows 8.1. Windows 8 already shipped with a bunch of apps—things like News, Weather, and Sports—developed by the Bing team, using Bing services, but that's all they were: apps that ran on the operating system, rather than integral features of the operating system.

In Windows 8.1, Bing has a deeper integration. Some of this is immediately visible; other parts are more subtle. Together, they suggest that Microsoft is not the company it once was. It's a better one.

Bing now powers Windows 8.1's search. Head into the search charm (or invoke it directly, with Win-S, for Search), type a search term, and hit return, and you'll be taken to a full-screen search app. This will include relevant local hits (files, apps, and settings), but it goes a lot further than that, thanks to data taken from Bing.

Pretty much any search term will result in Web search results. This is the most obvious thing for Bing to do, of course, since at its heart it is a search engine; however, they're not the only thing that you can find.

Bing doesn't just index Web content. It tries to extract structured, meaningful information from Web pages, using this information to construct entities. Consider, for example, the search for Holly Willoughby I took a picture of here. Bing knows that "Holly Willoughby" is not merely a sequence of letters; it knows that it's the name of a particular person with an age, a place of birth, a picture, and a Wikipedia page. It knows that she's been in a number of specific TV shows, that there are videos that feature her, and that people who search for her often also search for her various co-presenters on the shows she's been in.

The search tool shows Web results alongside the structured entities. It has been reported that it will eventually show advertising along with these results, which will be an odd juxtaposition. On the one hand, it's normal for Web search results to show ads, and in principle, those ads can even be useful (especially for things like searches for products). On the other hand, I expect lots of people will argue that ads have no place in a commercial operating system.

These structured results (called "Search heroes" by Microsoft) can also link into applications. So the Holly Willoughby Wikipedia link doesn't take you to her Wikipedia entry on the Web; it takes you to the corresponding place in the Wikipedia app. If you don't have the app, you're prompted to install it.

This deep linking is currently at Microsoft's discretion. Bing knows which apps are popular and well-regarded, and will link to them when appropriate. There isn't, however, any way for an application to declare "I know about Movie entities," say, and have that show up in relevant searches automatically. This is different from Windows Phone, which does let apps declare that they understand certain kinds of information, ensuring that they get wired up to search results.

The search results are the most visible part of Bing's integration, but not the only part. As part of its modelling and analysis, Bing builds language models. These are then used to inform the autocomplete corrections that the Windows 8.1 soft keyboard uses. Bing knows the hot topics of the day and the names and places that people are talking and typing about, and it can adjust its language model data accordingly. Windows 8.1 then downloads this data daily. In this way, the keyboard behavior can change, albeit subtly, to stay current.

Microsoft isn't the only company to build this kind of search-driven, data-driven capability into its operating system. Windows 8.1 uses Bing in a reactive, user-directed way. Google has arguably gone a step further with Google Now. Google Now pulls data from, for example, appointments in your calendar to proactively show structured information that it assumes will be useful: weather, driving directions, that kind of thing.

Microsoft isn't doing that proactive searching just yet. Members of the Bing team tell us that the difficulty for this kind of system is proper handling of mistakes. If the system generates mistakes—for example, giving you useless driving directions explaining how to drive home, even though you've flown across the country for a week to go to a conference—then users will lose confidence in it and stop using it.

Both ensuring that those mistakes are rare and giving users a good way to fix mistakes remain challenging. To continue the example, users need to be able to tell the system, "I don't care about that set of driving directions" while still not disabling the ability to show directions in general.

Google building search-driven features into Android isn't surprising. It's what Google does. Microsoft building Bing-driven features into Windows shouldn't be surprising. But it is.

Microsoft has traditionally been a company that made internal divisions painfully visible to outsiders. In fact, this aspect of the company has become an object of ridicule: It's joked that the company's org chart has a bunch of divisions pointing guns at each other, such is their hostility to one another.

For example, the Office team pointedly refused to do anything to enable the core Office products (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook), or do anything to support the Windows team's decade-long attempt to produce a tablet operating system. Even the very latest Office 2013 makes only minimal concessions to tablet usage.

A comment that an ex-employee posted on Ars in the wake of departure of Steven Sinofsky, former President of the Windows Division tells a similar story: good, popular products and teams were destroyed if they weren't serving the Windows division.

The Bing integration in Windows 8.1 is a sign that the company is working to put those days behind it. The Bing group's knowledge and expertise—collection and processing of vast amounts of data, extraction of semantic meaning—is being used to make another group's product—Windows—better. This is the approach Microsoft should have had all along: build the best products, regardless of which division or team was responsible for a particular piece of technology.

When Sinofsky left last November, there were widespread rumors that he'd been pushed out precisely because of difficulties in achieving this kind of collaboration. CEO Steve Ballmer wants Microsoft to be more collaborative as part of its transition to a "Devices and Services" company, and the rumors claim that Sinofsky was seen as an impediment to this.

There's some irony in that; Sinofsky himself is credited with saying "Don't ship the org chart;" that is, don't make internal divisions apparent in the shipping product, while being blamed for an apparent inability to overcome those same internal divisions.

Microsoft is believed to be planning an internal reorganization to further the "Devices and Services" ambitions. In the old Microsoft, this reorganization would be significant for employees and customers alike, as the structure of the organization would directly impact the design of its products.

But Windows 8.1 shows that it might not be such a big deal for anyone outside the company after all. The Bing integration in Windows 8.1 gives a hint that the collaboration and company-wide agendas that Ballmer wants to promote are already starting to materialize and are already yielding better products. The reorganization might formalize a new Microsoft that pulls together as one, but signs are that the hard work has already begun.

What happens if I'm not connected to the internet? Does the Bing search stop working?

Yes. You can also disable it when you're on a metered connection.

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Furthermore, does Bing now keep track of files/usage on my local computer?

No. Local results are provided locally.

Thank you for the response to the first, but I have trouble accepting the second. Perhaps it's my sceptical nature. Can it be guaranteed that Bing is not tracking searches on local computers and communicating those results to a Microsoft server? Because the default Bing search engine sure tracks results, and it would require additional developer effort to modify that behaviour.

The ad-supported model of Bing only applies if I am accessing it online through a browser. Since any OS/computer can access Bing online, it makes sense for that version of Bing to be ad-supported.

However, I am paying for Windows on the desktop. The version of Bing on the desktop should not have any ads. Period. Is Microsoft not making enough money on the sale of the OS? If not, change the price accordingly (although their profit margins say otherwise).

Huh? This is exactly how searches work on every OS with integrated web search. You use Android, you get Google Ads when you use the integrated search. You use Windows Phone, you get Bing Ads when you use the integrated search.

That is how they are paying for that service. You didn't pay for Bing, you paid for Windows. You get full Windows functionality with the option to add Bing search to it if you want.

You aren't being denied anything by not using the Bing searched, but Bing has to pay for itself somehow. They don't get a dime from Windows.

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What happens if I'm not connected to the internet? Does the Bing search stop working?

Local search works completely without an internet connection, just like if you disabled Bing search in the OS.

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Furthermore, does Bing now keep track of files/usage on my local computer? Isn't that how Bing search (or any online search nowadays) is designed, to build a likely search criteria from the usage model? Are my personal, private files on my desktop now open for inspection to Microsoft?

Even if it's just the filenames, that's too much information going to Microsoft already.

Look at the configuration options DrPizza linked. You control what gets sent to Bing. If you do want to use it, but you don't want it personalized, then disable that part. Then it doesn't collect behavior data.

You have control over what it searches and how. That's the key takeaway here. I personally love having an integrated search. It works very well in practice, and you can choose per-search if you want something to be local-only.

So far, my only complaint is that it doesn't appear to index stuff in my Homegroup, so I don't get results from my home server, which is where all my stuff is actually stored. [EDIT] Just fixed that, the Homegroup folders needed to be re-added to my Libraries. Looks like Windows 8.1 deprecates Libraries.

However, I am paying for Windows on the desktop. The version of Bing on the desktop should not have any ads. Period. Is Microsoft not making enough money on the sale of the OS?

They aren't. Last time I checked, a couple of quarters ago, Microsoft loses $500 million+ per quarter on Bing. Something Google makes billions upon billions with.

Losing money on one division doesn't mean they're losing money across the board. AFAIK, Windows is still very profitable, and what I'm buying is Windows. I almost don't care if they're losing money on Bing. That's their decision. Their choice to shutter Bing in the future should not affect the OS in any way, or my purchasing habits. Do you see what I mean?

Thank you for the response to the first, but I have trouble accepting the second. Perhaps it's my sceptical nature. Can it be guaranteed that Bing is not tracking searches on local computers and communicating those results to a Microsoft server? Because the default Bing search engine sure tracks results, and it would require additional developer effort to modify that behaviour.

Perhaps we are talking about different things.

Here's what the sidebar-based search looks like:

The results above the line are all locally generated. They appear even if I'm offline or have Bing searching disabled. Your filenames aren't sent to Bing, and Bing isn't required to produce these results. Bing doesn't know about the files you have on your computer, or the content within those files.

The results below the line are Bing-generated. To do this, yes, any words you type into the box get sent to Bing (just like search-as-you-type in a search engine or browser omnibox). That's the stuff Bing knows about.

Do I get Bing Rewards points with this new search like I do on bing.com and Windows Phone?

From what I've seen, no.

The Bing app for Windows 8.0 could be configured to do that, but as of right now, I haven't seen a way to enable the same functionality in the new search app. The setting panel only allows you to edit your search parameters (SafeSearch, etc.), and there's no option for Bing rewards.

The ad-supported model of Bing only applies if I am accessing it online through a browser. Since any OS/computer can access Bing online, it makes sense for that version of Bing to be ad-supported.

However, I am paying for Windows on the desktop. The version of Bing on the desktop should not have any ads. Period. Is Microsoft not making enough money on the sale of the OS? If not, change the price accordingly (although their profit margins say otherwise).

Huh? This is exactly how searches work on every OS with integrated web search. You use Android, you get Google Ads when you use the integrated search. You use Windows Phone, you get Bing Ads when you use the integrated search.

That is how they are paying for that service. You didn't pay for Bing, you paid for Windows. You get full Windows functionality with the option to add Bing search to it if you want.

You aren't being denied anything by not using the Bing searched, but Bing has to pay for itself somehow. They don't get a dime from Windows.

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What happens if I'm not connected to the internet? Does the Bing search stop working?

Local search works completely without an internet connection, just like if you disabled Bing search in the OS.

Quote:

Furthermore, does Bing now keep track of files/usage on my local computer? Isn't that how Bing search (or any online search nowadays) is designed, to build a likely search criteria from the usage model? Are my personal, private files on my desktop now open for inspection to Microsoft?

Even if it's just the filenames, that's too much information going to Microsoft already.

Look at the configuration options DrPizza linked. You control what gets sent to Bing. If you do want to use it, but you don't want it personalized, then disable that part. Then it doesn't collect behavior data.

You have control over what it searches and how. That's the key takeaway here. I personally love having an integrated search. It works very well in practice, and you can choose per-search if you want something to be local-only.

So far, my only complaint is that it doesn't appear to index stuff in my Homegroup, so I don't get results from my home server, which is where all my stuff is actually stored.

For the first part, the point is this: I'm not buying a phone. I'm buying a commercial desktop OS. I don't care what Google (anything) does. Their OS is not for sale. It's free to use because the user is not the customer, the user is the product. To Google, the advertisers are the customers. To Microsoft, the user is the customer. The business model is entirely different (to date).

For the second part, it's fine if the controls are available. However, I'm sceptical that turning it off actually turns off everything. Prior experience in such cases has proven otherwise almost every time. Even more suspicious is that it is enabled by default, making it an opt-out scenario. There is too much history on how those end up as well. As more information is revealed, I'm more convinced that windows 8.1 is the first step towards tracking user behaviour on a commercial business OS, a first for Microsoft.

However, I am paying for Windows on the desktop. The version of Bing on the desktop should not have any ads. Period. Is Microsoft not making enough money on the sale of the OS?

They aren't. Last time I checked, a couple of quarters ago, Microsoft loses $500 million+ per quarter on Bing. Something Google makes billions upon billions with.

Losing money on one division doesn't mean they're losing money across the board. AFAIK, Windows is still very profitable, and what I'm buying is Windows. I almost don't care if they're losing money on Bing. That's their decision. Their choice to shutter Bing in the future should not affect the OS in any way, or my purchasing habits. Do you see what I mean?

Then you should be fine with how they set it up. You can turn off the use of Bing and never care about its search results or its ads. Easy Peasy.

Thank you for the response to the first, but I have trouble accepting the second. Perhaps it's my sceptical nature. Can it be guaranteed that Bing is not tracking searches on local computers and communicating those results to a Microsoft server? Because the default Bing search engine sure tracks results, and it would require additional developer effort to modify that behaviour.

Perhaps we are talking about different things.

Here's what the sidebar-based search looks like:

The results above the line are all locally generated. They appear even if I'm offline or have Bing searching disabled. Your filenames aren't sent to Bing, and Bing isn't required to produce these results. Bing doesn't know about the files you have on your computer, or the content within those files.

The results below the line are Bing-generated. To do this, yes, any words you type into the box get sent to Bing (just like search-as-you-type in a search engine or browser omnibox). That's the stuff Bing knows about.

So, to clarify, Windows 8.1 has a local search engine with no relation to Bing, and that the results are passed onto Bing Web search when the option is enabled? If so, then I misunderstood the article, and the statement about deep integration.

So, to clarify, Windows 8.1 has a local search engine with no relation to Bing, and that the results are passed onto Bing Web search when the option is enabled? If so, then I misunderstood the article, and the statement about deep integration.

Yup, that's it. The deep integration is on the front-end, in how it surfaces the integrated results to you, not on the back-end.

So, to clarify, Windows 8.1 has a local search engine with no relation to Bing, and that the results are passed onto Bing Web search when the option is enabled? If so, then I misunderstood the article, and the statement about deep integration.

Yup, that's it. The deep integration is on the front-end, in how it surfaces the integrated results to you, not on the back-end.

So, to clarify, Windows 8.1 has a local search engine with no relation to Bing, and that the results are passed onto Bing Web search when the option is enabled? If so, then I misunderstood the article, and the statement about deep integration.

Yep. The deep integration is that the Bing part is built into the OS (though you can turn it off), and that Bing, while not aware of your files, IS aware of Windows apps. So you search for a movie, say. One that is still in theaters. Rather than take you to a web result, Bing figures you want to find movie times and instead of offering you a list of links, offers you a deep-link right to the movie in a Fandango app, so you can buy tickets.

That's the "deep integration" that they hope happens. Now, of course, Windows 8 doesn't have a Fandango app-- and it possibly never will. But that's the sort of experience they want, one where search ties through apps, so Bing is an search that understands applications that are on the computer, which is similar to Windows Phone 8.

The fact is that Office is Microsoft's primary application. The fact also appears to be that Microsoft has still failed to make any substantial update to the Office UI that significantly exploits any of the UI technology that Microsoft has introduced since 2000. The transformation from the command line to the Windows UI was deeply intertwined with Office's exploitation of that UI. The combination is what made Microsoft what it is. The failure of Microsoft to find a way to add value to Office with its newer technology is the primary mark of its recent failures.

I didn't see this in time to make a comment that will be read instead of buried - this was MS's plan all along, to monetize their captive audience of consumer Windows users by driving web traffic to Bing. I'm surprised that aspect of Win 8 wasn't covered more by the media. You almost have to make a Bing account in Win8 - I figured out how to get around it, but most users won't.

My prediction: Windows 9 will come in a "consumer" edition (runs only Metro programs and requires Bing signon) and "legacy" edition (will run WinAPI, priced so only corporations can afford it). That's got to be the ultimate MS plan behind Metro and Win8. The corporate "legacy" edition will cost so much a consumer could not afford it at retail, but corporations will be given deep discounts so the unit price is about the same as a bulk Windows license costs now.

Actually, technically, it IS technically easy for MS to let someone replace bing in this behaviour. Let's say google wants to do it: users have to link their Microsoft account to the google account (they've probably already done so), and Google needs to implement an API that takes a query string and returns HTML with some custom Windows-8 css classes. Technically it's trivial.

But I think Microsoft will not make such an API public as long as a regulator doesn't force it to do it - they will point to Google Now and Siri and say that they don't provide a similar API.

My prediction: Windows 9 will come in a "consumer" edition (runs only Metro programs and requires Bing signon) and "legacy" edition (will run WinAPI, priced so only corporations can afford it). That's got to be the ultimate MS plan behind Metro and Win8. The corporate "legacy" edition will cost so much a consumer could not afford it at retail, but corporations will be given deep discounts so the unit price is about the same as a bulk Windows license costs now.

So play this out. Microsoft does this, Joe Public buys a new PC. It can't run all the stuff their current PC does. No Quicken. No Steam. No WordPerfect. No Office through 2013.

Does it seem likely that a company with two decades of demonstrated effort in supporting back-compat as much as possible would do that? You can still run VisiCalc 1.0 on Windows 8 x86 - I just did it to be sure. If that doesn't show a commitment I think it's impossible to do so.

And before someone says it - Windows RT doesn't count. That is targeting a different market - just like the iPad and Android don't run PC apps, RT doesn't either. All RT shows is that they decided emulating x86 on ARM didn't make sense. The desktop is still there, the old Win32 is still there (otherwise you wouldn't have Office).

I didn't see this in time to make a comment that will be read instead of buried - this was MS's plan all along, to monetize their captive audience of consumer Windows users by driving web traffic to Bing.

It's just one way to pay for the yearly free point updates. Not the only way.

Me, I'll keep searching the web from a web browser. It's just more convenient to go back and forth straight from the browser.

But can I use it to find a specific .DLL file on the hard drive in less than 10 minutes?

On current versions of Windows, I found that using the "Everything" search engine (voidtools.com) kicks the shit out of Windows built in search engine. It's criminal that there is such a disparity in the speed.

I'm not convinced Peter is correct, that the company is now happily working together.It IS true that Computation was followed by Communication which is being followed by Context; in other words Google Now and similar programs are the future. The problem is that there is little evidence that it is THIS vision that is driving Microsoft --- reading these comments there's a whole lot of hate for what MS has done, and pretty much no love --- which is not the sign of a healthy, though perhaps initially flawed integration and revamp.

An alternative hypothesis is that Steve Balmer gave MS Online or The Bing Divison or whatever they call themselves these days an ultimatum to start making money rather than losing it, and the desperate idea that resulted was this. Ads on the desktop (and, to be honest, given what we've seen so far, web search on the desktop done in this way) are NOT solving a problem and increasing customer delight; they're not even in Microsoft's own best interests. They look like a desperate attempt by a subdivision of MS to try to grab at some revenue rather than all losing their jobs.

(It would be an amazing thing, wouldn't it, if, when the history of MS is written in fifteen years, it turns out that every division had its own large hand in the company's destruction. The Windows division for producing Win8, Office for then refusing to support it, and finally Online for adding the final level of so-painful-to-use that everyone just gives up and sticks with 7 forever.)

I see it this way: local search is executed by the paid-for-software and so no ads. Websearch is done by a search service that's constantly being updated and developed, so you pay for that through ads.

I'd like to be able to switch the search provider. But if not, I'll use other apps or browsers. No big deal.

I am not the EFF. Why would you expect me to respond the same way as the EFF?

I don't expect you to always agree with the EFF. Although I certainly hope you do at least some of the time.

However, when I see a review of new functionality that pointedly ignores issues that will affect users, and which are directly related to topics that have been the focus of recent news, I have to consider that review flawed and incomplete. Isn't it relevant to the topic of this article that it parallels a development decision seen in Ubuntu? I don't expect you to pull a Stallman and denounce Windows 8.1 as spyware, but shouldn't you at least devote a few words to the privacy issues? The closest you got is mentioning that some people might not like ads in their OS.

When you read a Peter Bright article you have to realize that it is going to be an open love letter to Microsoft and then Google (or Bing) another article to get a more neutral article on the same topic. In this case Bing actually found me useful information.

But can I use it to find a specific .DLL file on the hard drive in less than 10 minutes?

On current versions of Windows, I found that using the "Everything" search engine (voidtools.com) kicks the shit out of Windows built in search engine. It's criminal that there is such a disparity in the speed.

From Voidtools FAQ.Q: Does Everything search file contents?A: No, "Everything" does not search file contents, only file and folder names.

Sounds great if you know the name of the file, not so great if you need to search based on content or meta data.

The index for voidtools should be much much smaller and faster to search through with little resource impact due to the limited amount of data they are indexing.

I'm not convinced Peter is correct, that the company is now happily working together.It IS true that Computation was followed by Communication which is being followed by Context; in other words Google Now and similar programs are the future. The problem is that there is little evidence that it is THIS vision that is driving Microsoft --- reading these comments there's a whole lot of hate for what MS has done, and pretty much no love --- which is not the sign of a healthy, though perhaps initially flawed integration and revamp.

An alternative hypothesis is that Steve Balmer gave MS Online or The Bing Divison or whatever they call themselves these days an ultimatum to start making money rather than losing it, and the desperate idea that resulted was this. Ads on the desktop (and, to be honest, given what we've seen so far, web search on the desktop done in this way) are NOT solving a problem and increasing customer delight; they're not even in Microsoft's own best interests. They look like a desperate attempt by a subdivision of MS to try to grab at some revenue rather than all losing their jobs.

(It would be an amazing thing, wouldn't it, if, when the history of MS is written in fifteen years, it turns out that every division had its own large hand in the company's destruction. The Windows division for producing Win8, Office for then refusing to support it, and finally Online for adding the final level of so-painful-to-use that everyone just gives up and sticks with 7 forever.)

Your alternative hypothesis might be fairly accurate. Look at the mess over at Xbox One, particularly now with the admission of Kinect integration for advertisements. (And simply changing the connector to a proprietary one on Xbox One so that there is a necessity to purchase a separate Kinect for use on PC is a blatant money grab and nothing more).

It is certainly understandable for a company to provide services and experiences according to what their customers want and expect to make a profit in return. However, it appears Microsoft has just thrown out any care for user experience or customer satisfaction and are purely focused on squeezing pennies from every place they can by imposing what they deem is best for everyone. The more complaints people give about the broken UI + Metro, and lack of traditional, familiar Start Button + Start Menu, the more I see defensive responses suggesting that we should all study a list of crazy keyboard shortcut commands like they are somehow vastly more intuitive for the average user. The good news is that it is 2013 and we have plenty of competition giving us alternative options to Microsoft products in most situations, and those options continue to look better everyday. I get enough "tech support" type calls from family/friends about their computers as-is, the last thing I am trying to do is train them how to use Windows again because of Windows 8, therefor my only suggestion going forward for them will be to buy a Mac and call it a day.

I am not the EFF. Why would you expect me to respond the same way as the EFF?

I don't expect you to always agree with the EFF. Although I certainly hope you do at least some of the time.

However, when I see a review of new functionality that pointedly ignores issues that will affect users, and which are directly related to topics that have been the focus of recent news, I have to consider that review flawed and incomplete. Isn't it relevant to the topic of this article that it parallels a development decision seen in Ubuntu? I don't expect you to pull a Stallman and denounce Windows 8.1 as spyware, but shouldn't you at least devote a few words to the privacy issues? The closest you got is mentioning that some people might not like ads in their OS.

I have to admit, I had forgotten about Ubuntu's Amazon tie-in. Though even if I had remembered, I think that Android is the better comparison; although it is not doing quite the same thing, its Google integration is far more significant and relevant to far more people. And those people by and large do not care. Ubuntu is not a mainstream consumer product; Android and Windows are.

So, anyway. Privacy. I guess it seemed kind of obvious to me that if a feature uses a cloud service then the cloud service has some insight into what you're doing. Honestly, it doesn't seem any more notable than saying that if you use Gmail, then Google has some access to your e-mail. To my mind, it's basically taken for granted. The overwhelming majority of people don't appear to care. The minority who do care don't really need to be told about the issue; they know it already.

If you were hoping that I would not only point out the issue but advocate a particular stance, well, I'm afraid I'm not going to do that, because honestly, I just don't care. I don't care that a search engine knows what I'm searching for, and I don't care that search engine features are built-in. I think the new Windows 8.1 capabilities have the potential to be useful. If I find them consistently unhelpful then I will probably turn them off, but it's utility that will drive that decision, not privacy. I'm not going to push an EFF-like agenda that this is some great affront to privacy, because I don't think that it is (it's too trivial to turn it off), and I don't think that this kind of privacy is of any great importance anyway.